And about that, I was right. Hearing from David stuck with me all afternoon and hurtled me into an open state of brooding. I played Saturday night over and over until my hands shook as I copy edited. My mind wouldn’t let it rest. He wanted to talk. What was there to say? He said it wasn’t over—but didn’t he know that it was over before it had even begun?
I dreamed violently that night. Bill, David, and Mark Alvarez each angrily demanded something from me. I had lied to them, they told me. I had made fools of them. I was the cancer in their lives. When Mark called me names, David and Bill stood back and nodded their agreement.
I woke heavily at the edge of dawn, wishing I could sleep for days upon days. Gray clouds mirrored my unrest. As Bill showered, I crawled out of our warm bed and slogged into the kitchen for coffee. I didn’t want to upset Bill again, so I decided to cover my foul mood with pancakes, prepared with equal parts guilt and love.
As planned, the pancakes diverted his attention. He came out of the bedroom in a suit, tie, and a wide smile. “This is a surprise,” he said excitedly and rubbed his stomach. “I was going to grab something on my way to work. Have I told you lately what a wonderful wife you are?”
How could he not see that I was terrible? How could he not sense David on me, in me, taking over my thoughts, commanding my body? I let Bill kiss me on the cheek as I stared at the griddle with my spatula cocked.
After retrieving the Tribune from our doorstep, he said, “Looks like rain out there.”
“Great,” I muttered and flipped one pancake after another. Flip, splat. Flip, splat. Flip, splat.
“Hopefully it won’t go through the weekend. I made an appointment with Jeanine on Saturday.”
I pushed a stray hair from my face with my forearm and turned to him. “What?”
He unfolded the newspaper, shaking it out. “She has three different places to show us. Sounds optimistic, too.”
To see more houses? We hadn’t discussed that. His tone left no room for argument, but after the week I’d had, I really wasn’t in the mood. “I thought you told your sister we’d visit, though.”
“On Sunday, yes.” He grinned. “It’ll be a productive weekend.”
That, it would. One with no time for me to decompress from work. I moved the current batch of pancakes to a platter and started a new one. “I wish you’d checked with me,” I said. “I have plans with Lucy.”
“She’ll understand. We have to prioritize these things if we’re going to get any momentum. We’ve already rescheduled once, remember?” He took a seat at the kitchen table with his newspaper, scanning the headlines. “If we’re going to start trying for a baby, we need to get going on the house. At this point, time’s not on our side.”
My shoulders sagged with the weight of the news. Had he not heard anything I’d said over the weekend? Couldn’t he see that I was already compromising by going off birth control? I needed time to adjust, not another excruciating car ride with Jeanine. “About that . . .”
“About what?” he asked, not bothering to hide the challenge in his voice.
I glanced back at him. “Maybe it would be a good idea to get settled in a house before we start thinking about a baby.”
He resumed reading the front page. “It takes some women months for birth control to wear off,” he muttered. “By that time, we could potentially be in a new place.”
My throat closed. Months? “No,” I said, struggling to get the words out. “No baby until we’ve found a home.”
He glanced up at me. I waited for him to react, uncertain of which way he’d go, but he only gestured behind me. “Liv, the pancakes.”
Liv, the pancakes? LIV, THE PANCAKES? Are you completely fucking oblivious, Bill?
Here I was, pleading with him to understand that I was more than scared about moving on to this next part of our life. I was resistant—unsure if I wanted it at all. But all he cared about was that I might burn his pancakes?
He turned back to the Tribune, and after a moment of reading, he chuckled.
Frustration simmered inside me. I’d told him over and over I wasn’t ready. I needed to make him hear me now or he never would. And no—not because he was oblivious. Because he didn’t want to hear me.
I turned away from the pancakes to face him. “I am not going off birth control,” I said.
He licked his finger and flipped the page. “Hmm?”
“And I cheated on you.”
It took a moment until his head shot up. “What did you say?”
Oh, fuck.
I’d meant to put my foot down, not blow up my marriage on this specific morning, no matter how gray and shitty it was. The gravity of my spontaneous confession hit me fast and hard. Panic flooded me, liquefying my muscles. I lowered my eyes, darting them over the linoleum floor. My words hung in the air, thick and palpable between us.
“Hey,” Bill called. “What’d you say?”
I looked up and shook my head, a silent beg that he wouldn’t make me repeat it.
It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m not ready.
But he waited and waited, staring at me until I couldn’t stand the silence another second. “I-I slept with someone.”
“When?” he cried, shooting up from the table. “Who?”
“It’s not important who,” I said. “I did it, and that’s it.” The smell of burning batter filled the kitchen, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from him.
He blindly fell back into his chair. “No,” he said. “This is some twisted way of trying to get out of the birth control thing. Isn’t it?”
If only. I shook my head at the floor and shrugged my shoulders—not to diminish the moment, but because even though I’d set this conversation in motion, I felt helpless to where it was headed.
“Isn’t it?” he repeated. His tone shifted from desperate to soft and despondent. “How? Who?”
I continued to shake my head. Did it matter? Why make things worse with details?
“When?” he asked.
“May.”
“Five months ago?” He laughed in a burst of dead air before dropping his forehead in his palm. “All this time, I thought . . .”
Tears tickled my nose. My hands flew to my face, an attempt to keep my composure. We sat that way for a long moment, not speaking.
“Who?” he asked again. “Who was it?”
I kept my face buried. “You don’t know him.”
He snorted. When I looked up again, he’d set his elbows on the table and his face in his hands. “I’m such a fool,” he said. “So stupid. Is this what you wanted? To make me look stupid?”
“Of course not,” I said, frowning. “It just . . . happened.”
“Once?”
I cleared my throat and looked away. “Twice,” I lied. I knew I could never bring myself to tell him the truth about the masquerade ball.
“After everything we’ve been through.” His voice pitched. “How could you do this? And why are you telling me now?”
“I’m so sorry. You deserve better.” I approached the table cautiously. My heart pounded as I eased into a chair across from him. “What can I do? To make it better?”
“Seriously? What kind of question is that?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
He shot up so fast that he overturned his chair. As he bent to pick it up, he said, “I have to get to work.”
“Now?” I exclaimed. “We need to discuss this.”
“I should take the day off because you picked now to tell me?” he asked. “Hell of a time. Really, Liv. Now I have to sit through the day thinking about it.”
I looked at him pleadingly, even though his eyes were fixed on the floor. “Don’t go. I’ll tell you anything. Just stay.”
“Yes, you will tell me everything. Later. Right now, I have to go to work.”
“Call in sick,” I implored. “We have to talk about this now. Do it for us. Let’s fix this now, today.”
He gave me a lin
gering look. “I just really can’t deal with this on top of everything at work. Shit.” He rubbed his temples and muttered, “Why now?”
“Are you going to leave me?” I whispered.
He looked over my head and squinted. His chin trembled slightly. “No. I don’t know. Maybe. I need more info.” He turned away and snatched his blazer from the couch. “And I want the truth tonight. No more secrets.”
He walked out. Seconds later, the front door slammed.
With an unsteady breath, I unplugged the grill and overturned the burnt pancakes into the sink.
It was done. I’d blurted it all out, no planned speech, no words prepared to comfort him, no backup plan in case he’d kicked me out. Completely erratic. I didn’t even recognize myself in that moment.
I grabbed my coat and left for the office, replaying the morning over and over on the way until I thought I might vomit. Not until I was behind my locked office door did I sink into my shame with the onset of rain. I had done to Bill what I’d shielded myself from all these years: I’d ripped the carpet out from under him. I’d shattered his trust. This would destroy him.
I agonized over what would come next. Would he leave me? What would I do? Where would I go? I tried to understand what I was feeling. The thought of him leaving scared and saddened but didn’t surprise me. I almost felt relieved that the day had finally come that my marriage would end the same way my parents’ had. As if I had known all along that I was cursed.
But Bill’s belief in the bond of marriage ran deeper than that. He might take this out on me forever, but he wouldn’t leave. It wasn’t him. It was part of the reason I’d agreed to marry him in the first place—he was constant and reliable.
I couldn’t blame my infidelity on a bad marriage. I was coming to realize that Bill was far from the perfect husband, but what had happened between David and me was unable to be contained. Before I’d met him, I wouldn’t have classified Bill’s and my relationship as anything but stable. But if Bill didn’t feel like home, didn’t that mean something? I wondered shamefully if being with Bill was still what I wanted.
And if maybe I’d written off the idea of finding a home in someone as unpredictable as David too soon. I’d tried to forget him, but it was impossible. Nobody made me feel the way he did. He’d awoken something, and I would never be the same for it.
Despite the way he’d crushed me on Saturday, I didn’t want him any less. If anything, our magnetic pull intensified with every minute that passed, regardless of whether we were together or apart. I still wanted him. And I wanted him all to myself. No Maria, no Dani.
But that was the effect he had on women. Could I trust that David felt differently about me? Maybe. But the bigger issue was that I couldn’t trust myself when it came to him.
I was an hour through revising an editorial that should have taken me thirty minutes to complete. I'd been stuck on the same sentence for five minutes when I stopped and took out my phone.
I swallowed hard as I stared at the screen. I had to make things right—no matter how painful that might be. Things between David and me had to end. Bill and I could not move forward this way.
Maybe in some other life, we were meant to be. Soulmates, even. I allowed myself a small smile for how he’d turned me into a believer.
I didn’t know how I would end it once and for all, but it had to be done. David’s e-mail told me that it wasn’t over. If there was any doubt between us, I had to put it to rest. David and Bill both deserved the truth.
With unsteady fingers, I crafted my text message.
Me: Meet me at your office in 20 minutes.
21
I arrived at Pierson/Greer to find David’s whole floor empty. I peeked into his office but remained in the doorway to wait.
My heart leaped when the door across the way opened. Arnaud Mallory, David’s unnerving colleague with a tendency for leering, stuck out his head.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping he wouldn’t see me.
“Bonjour, Olivia,” he said.
I opened one eye. “Mr. Mallory.”
“Call me Arnaud. Expecting Dylan?”
I blinked around the room and nodded.
“Such a shame. I’d never leave a pretty girl like you waiting.” I shuddered slightly as his voice crept over me. “Come in. Have a drink.”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll just wait for—for Mr. Dylan here.”
“But no, I won’t have it. Come, come.”
David strode into the office to my relief—except that seeing him again aroused a host of other emotions. Aside from the inexorable need I had to run to him, shame washed over me with the memory of the coarse tree we’d fucked against and his even coarser dismissal.
“I got your text,” he said, stopping abruptly in front of me. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk.”
He gestured behind me. “In my office.” He turned to the empty desk between the two offices and asked Arnaud, “Where the hell is Clare? Find her. She’s not supposed to leave this desk.”
As he shut the door, I inhaled the dizzying, intoxicating scent of his office—spicy, natural but refined. Him, but stronger. I remembered our moments in the confined stairwell. At the edge of the roof in the dark as I’d pressed my cheek against his back. And the first time I’d been alone with him, at Lucy’s engagement party. I remembered, I remembered, I remembered. “I can’t do this,” I uttered to myself, vibrating with fear and nerves.
Just say it. We’re done. Bill knows, and we . . . are . . . done.
David stalked in my direction, relief written on his face. “Thank you for coming. We need to talk about Saturday night. There’s no excuse—Jesus Christ,” he said, coming closer. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” I said.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He stepped in front of me as if I might make a break for it. “What’s going on?”
I crossed my arms into myself. “I shouldn’t have come here. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”
“Olivia,” he said softly, but with authority. “Say what you came here to say.” The hopefulness in his voice pulled at my heart. Did he think I’d come here to choose him? “Don’t shut me out. Tell me why you’re here.”
I wanted to tell him that Bill knew everything and that David and I could never see each other again. I wanted to say that he’d hurt me on Saturday night. That I felt used and disgusting. I wanted to tell him that since I’d met him, life meant something different.
My stomach heaved. “I don’t think I can do this right now.” I ran the back of my hand over my clammy forehead. Nausea struck my gut. “Everything is going to be fine,” I told myself.
“Fine?” he repeated, his voice rising. “You’re going to pull that shit with me?”
I blinked at him for a long moment. My knees may as well have been knocking together.
Oh, God, this is it. This is it.
“You don’t look well. Do you need—”
“He knows!” I cried.
“What?”
“He . . . knows.” I wrung my fingers. “It’s over. This,” I clarified, motioning between us, “is so over.”
“You told him?”
“I don’t want to lose you,” I said, sniffling back tears. My breaths were short and shallow as I continued. “But that doesn’t matter. I—can’t—do this anymore.”
“No. You’re right.” He shook his head. “If Saturday night proved anything, it’s that this needed to end.”
His unexpected words pierced through my heart like small knives. I didn’t want him to want things to end this way. But he was right.
Noticing my shudder, his tone softened. “I only meant that we couldn’t keep going like this,” he explained.
I nodded. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter anyway.” I glanced out the windowed wall behind him. “I don’t know why I came here. But I thought you had a right to know that Bill knows. I didn’t tell him it was you, but if I do, I c
an’t promise he won’t tell others. Your reputation—”
“I don’t give a fuck about my reputation. Look at me, Olivia.” When I turned to him, his eyebrows drew together. “You look scared shitless. Did he hurt you?”
“Bill would never,” I said.
“You should’ve come to me first. I would’ve done it with you so he could take it out on me. Tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to tell yet. I told him right before he left for work.”
“He went to work?” he asked, incredulous.
“He said we’d discuss it tonight.”
David rubbed his hand over his forehead, muttering something about Bill being a fool. “Fuck. He might ask for a divorce. Is that what you want?”
“His family is strictly against it, as is he. He won’t.”
“But what do you want, Olivia?”
“I don’t know,” I said with blurry eyes. “I came here to tell you that you and I are done.”
After a brief silence, he asked, “Don’t you want to know what I want?”
“No,” I lied.
“Things can’t just end this way. There’s too much here.”
I closed my eyes and whispered, “Please don’t make this any harder.”
“So that’s it?” he asked, his voice simultaneously rising and deepening. “Did you think you would just come here and tell me it’s over?”
I nodded. “What else is there to say?”
“Everything.” He came to me slowly and gently cupped my face. “This was never a fling for me, baby. You mean so much more than that.” He swallowed audibly. “I’m not ready to let you go.”
Someone knocked. “Mr. Dylan?”
“Not now, Clare,” he called over his shoulder. He looked back at me. “Olivia. Now is the time.”
“For what?” I whispered.
“To leave Bill.”
Just hearing David say Bill’s name when he usually referred to him as my husband, I knew he wasn’t fucking around anymore. “There’s too much at stake, David.”
“Such as? Tell me all your concerns. I’ll fix them. I’ll be by your side every step—”
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